


Guilty Thoughts

by afteriwake



Series: Saviors Of All Worlds [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Atlantis, Dreams and Nightmares, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Flirting, Hugs, Hurt Kirk, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, James T. Kirk & Nyota Uhura Friendship, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, One-Sided Attraction, POV Nyota Uhura, PTSD Kirk, Past Spock/Nyota Uhura, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Roleplay Logs, Swimming, Swimming Pools, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8526529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Two nights after their arrival in Atlantis, Kirk asks Uhura to join him on the rooftop of their tower for a swim and drinks. She agrees and gets more than she bargained for.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> So. I got talked into joining another game that **sideofrawr** runs and it took her _two days_ to get me to start shipping my post-"Star Trek Into Darkness" Kirk and her post-"Star Trek Beyond" Uhura together. And then tonight I posted [a thread](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/saveatlantisic/21431.html?thread=439223#t439223) about Kirk being up on the roof stargazing and he filtered privately to Uhura and...this came out of it. So. Yes. All her fault, yes yes yes.

She picked up the bottle of whiskey and took a drink straight from the bottle, watching her Captain tread water in the rooftop pool. They’d only been in Atlantis two days, and already it seemed as though their carefully ordered relationship had been flipped on its head. There was, of course, the fact that there was nearly a two-year difference in time between them; for her she was coming off of the events of Yorktown; for him, he was still dealing with the aftermath of what the bastards had put him through with his need for revenge for Admiral Pike’s death. And then there was the fact that here, their rank didn’t matter. The Enterprise wasn’t here and he wasn’t a Captain. He’d said earlier that here, he was Jim, a Combat Field Agent and she was Nyota, the best damn linguist that Atlantis would ever get. And he had a point, but she still couldn’t quite stop thinking of him as her Captain.

Of course, that was when she wasn’t thinking of him in...other ways.

He was a natural flirt, and their relationship had always had a slight tinge of flirtation, even if he’d never been serious about it after he assumed Captainship of the Enterprise. She knew he respected his friendship with Spock and respected her status as his significant other. But now...well, now she really wasn’t quite sure what she was to Spock. And Spock wasn’t here, just Dr. McCoy. And now here they were in a rooftop pool with a nearly empty bottle of whiskey in the least amount of clothing they’d seen each other in since the day she caught him in her room with Gaila, and she had to admit, age had done him some favors. Even with the water obscuring the view slightly, it was more impressive all these years later than it had been in their academy days.

And she felt guilty for even considering it, hence the reason the bottle was almost empty. She wasn’t quite sure whether she was drinking to make herself forget about doing something stupid or to _help_ her do something stupid. More towards the former, she was sure. 

She’d just set the bottle down when she felt two hands grab her waist and suddenly she was being lifted into the air. “Captain!” she shrieked.

“Jim,” he said, pulling her off the pool’s edge and into the water. Despite the coolness of the night, the water was actually warmer than she expected. She had the feeling the people who were running the tower knew that if they were going to use the pool they wouldn’t want it to be cool this late at night. He set her feet on the floor of the pool and she found it wasn’t as deep as she’d thought; she could stand up and keep her head up just fine. She watched Jim move around her and turned in the water, staying submerged nearly to her chin. “I’m not your Captain anymore.”

“It’s going to take a while to get used to,” she said. She reached over to stop him from moving. “You’re making me dizzy.”

“Sorry,” he said, giving her a grin. He moved closer to her. “Are you tipsy?”

“What?” she asked, making a face. “Me? No. Why? Are you?”

“I’m sober now,” he said. Her face contorted into a frown, and then she splashed water in his face. He sputtered and gave her an incredulous look. “What’s that for?”

“The bottle was half empty when I got here!” she said.

“Well, it wasn’t all full when I got it!” he said. He ducked down underwater, and when he popped up again he was closer to her. He ran his hands through his hair, shaking the water out, and then looked at her. “I mean, I _did_ drink a decent amount, but it takes more than that to get me shitfaced. You went out drinking with me last night!”

“Yes, but it’s a big bottle of whiskey!” she said.

“And last night we had vodka,” he said slowly.

Her eyes widened. “And whiskey’s your drink of choice, so your tolerance is higher,” she said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “You know, when we met in that bar in Iowa, I’d swear your tolerance was higher.”

She smirked. “It depends on the liquor.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said.

He grinned for a moment, then sank down more and tilted his head back so he was looking up at the stars again. “I wonder what liquor here has the highest alcohol content, and if I can sneak a bottle into my room for the really bad nights.”

“How bad was last night?” she asked quietly, her good mood fading slightly.

“Bad. I woke up screaming and in a sweat,” he said. “I heard Marcus die again, over and over. Heard Khan’s last words to him.” His voice dropped as he spoke. “I just couldn’t wake up.”

She swam over slowly to him and them sank a little lower, pressing close and wrapping her arms around his lower ribs. He straightened up slightly and then wrapped his arms around her waist, putting his chin on her shoulder. “You can always come to my room if you need to,” she said, her lips near his ear. “We can do something. Come up here and look at the stars, get drunk, go for a walk on the beach...anything you need.”

He nodded his head slightly. “The same goes for you, you know,” he replied. “If you need me, I’m there for you. For whatever reason. I haven’t lived through everything you’ve been through yet, but...”

This time it was her turn to nod, and she was surprised when he tightened his hold on her. It felt nice to be held. It felt good to be able to comfort someone and to do receive some comforting as well. But a small part of her enjoyed being so close to Jim. If she was going to be honest with herself, she hadn’t exactly fended him off when they first met, and there were so many ways things could have gone differently and maybe they could have been a thing. It might have burnt out, she might have been another notch on his belt, or maybe she would have been someone different. But here, now...things were different. _They_ were different. Things could be different.

And she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, to be honest, because part of her felt guilty that she was here in his arms, even though it wasn’t really anything more than just comforting a friend.

But she liked being there, and wasn’t sure she wanted to leave.

And that...that could pose some problems if they weren’t careful.


End file.
